9-11 on film

Four-and-a-half years down the road, are we ready for feature films dealing with 9-11?

Ready or not, we’re about to find out.

“United 93,” the first Hollywood film to deal with the terrorist hijackings, will open nationwide April 28 after debuting April 25 at New York’s Tribeca Film Festival. An Aug. 11 release date has been set for Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center,” with Nicolas Cage starring as a Port Authority police officer trapped in the rubble.

United 93 was the “let’s roll” flight — the one hijacked plane that failed to hit its target, thanks to the brave passengers who battled with terrorists. It crashed near Shanksville, Pa., killing all aboard. The film attempts to re-create the flight in real time.

The early indications on how “United 93″ will be received are predictably mixed. The trailer, which debuted in theaters and on TV recently, has touched a nerve — an AMC Loews theater in Manhattan pulled it after complaints from patrons. Yet at a private screening in Newark, family members of the victims praised the film, according to wire service reports.

And Time magazine critic Richard Corliss has described “United 93″ as “honorable and artful as a re-creation of history, and as a film experience it’s both unbearable and unmissable.”